US protests as Afghanistan releases Bagram prisoners

The Afghan government began releasing prisoners on Thursday despite the objections of the US military, which said they were dangerous insurgents responsible for killing its soldiers.

The 65 detainees began emerging from the Bagram Prison in small groups and were taken away in vehicles belonging to the Afghan National Army military police, who are in charge of the facility. US military guards are also present at the prison but were not in evidence.

US military officials have been publicly scathing in their criticism of the releases, which have brought relations between the two allies to a low point at a time when talks on a long-term Western military presence have stalled.

In a statement, the US military expressed “strong concern about the potential threats these detainees pose to coalition forces and Afghan security forces and civilians.”

"Detainees from this group of 65 are directly linked to attacks killing or wounding 32 US or coalition personnel and 23 Afghan security personnel or civilians," the statement added. "Violent criminals who harm Afghans and threaten the peace and security of Afghanistan should face justice in the Afghan courts, where a fair and transparent trial would determine their guilt or innocence."

The 65 were ordered released without such trials by an Afghan review board, which determined there was not enough evidence to try them. The Afghan judge who heads the review board, Abdul Shakor Dadras, had confirmed that the releases would be carried out at a pace determined by Afghan authorities.

The 65 were among the last 88 Afghan prisoners being held at Bagram. The Afghan board previously ordered releases in 560 of the 760 Bagram detainee cases it reviewed, sending only 112 prisoners to trial. Many of those prisoners had been held there for years without judicial review, and President Hamid Karzai, who has called the prison a "Taliban-making factory," has said repeatedly that he wants to see it closed.

The only prisoners apparently still in US custody at the facility are foreign prisoners captured in Afghanistan, mostly Pakistanis.

In January, 37 of the last prisoners were ordered released but the releases were delayed after the US military complained that they would violate an agreement between the two countries that the Americans felt gave them veto power over releasing prisoners they regarded as dangerous.

On Tuesday, the US military issued a statement criticising what by then had become 65 planned releases in unusually harsh terms. Coalition military officials also released a dossier detailing what they said was convincing evidence of how dangerous some of the remaining detainees were.

Mr Dadras said that he had the support of the Afghan attorney general’s office and that Afghanistan was determined to release the prisoners despite U.S. criticism that seemed to stall the releases last month.

“The delay was not because we were scared of the Americans,” he said. “These prisoners’ release was delayed because we wanted to thoroughly re-review the files of these prisoners so that the Americans do not have a chance to complain again.”

New York Times